


Pages and Pariahs

by devilinthedetails



Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Gen, Gossip, Politics, Spoilers for Tortall Spy Guide, tradition
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-03
Updated: 2017-11-03
Packaged: 2019-01-28 19:16:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12613552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilinthedetails/pseuds/devilinthedetails
Summary: Lord Imrah and Roald debate a surprise letter. Spoilers for the Tortall Spy Guide.





	Pages and Pariahs

Pages and Pariahs 

“This next letter doesn’t bear a seal.” Roald, seated across from Lord Imrah at the maple desk in Lord Imrah’s study, as he helped his knightmaster respond to correspondence, frowned down at the envelope at the top of the pile. His forehead knotting as he scrutinized the loopy script in which the address was written, he added, “It’s in a child’s hand, I believe.” 

He couldn’t prevent the surprise shading his tone because he couldn’t imagine why a child would be writing to his knightmaster or how such a note had ended up in a stack with important missives from nobles and merchants throughout Tortall and Tyra. 

“Oh?” Lord Imrah’s eyebrows arched until they almost touched his bald head. “Don’t keep me in suspense, lad. Open the letter.” 

“You’ve no sense of mystery, my lord.” Roald’s lips quirked into a slight smile—since in the little less than a year he had been Lord Imrah’s squire, he had learned that in private or informal settings, he was permitted to treat his knightmaster with a levity that would have earned him a week’s punishment work from glowering Lord Wyldon—as he obediently slit the envelope. 

“I’ve got a great sense of mystery, squire, which is why I want to learn more about this one,” countered Lord Imrah with a wry twitch of his mouth, gesturing for Roald to read the note aloud. “Go on and read the letter. I’m all ears.” 

“To Lord Imrah of Legann from Alan of Pirate’s Swoop.” Roald started reading and immediately encountered his second shock. The last time he had seen Alan of Pirate’s Swoop, the boy had been strawberry-blond four-year-old incapable of writing anything more complicated than the alphabet with the guidance of a tutor. Somehow Alan had remained frozen in his mind at that stage. 

Mentally rolling his eyes at his own idiocy—because of course Alan wouldn’t have stopped growing any more than time would have begun moving backward—Roald went on with the letter, “My lord, my mother is Alanna of Pirate’s Swoop and Olau. My father is the baron of Pirate’s Swoop. I am ten years old. I am old enough to train as a page.” 

Roald realized with a blink that was true but he couldn’t understand why Alan was writing Lord Imrah about that…

Bemused, Roald continued reading, “I do not wish to do so at the palace. I have heard many people say that the training master hates my mother. They say that he has said openly that she is no true knight, even though she serves the king as his Champion. I do not wish to learn about chivalry from this man.” 

Sympathy stabbed through Roald. He knew how it felt to be denied the simplicity of childhood and to be thrust into the complexities of court politics, because his parents were royalty that inspired incredible adulation and antipathy, admiration and animosity that was projected onto Roald that he could only combat by being scrupulously fair and polite to everyone. Tortall was so fractured between liberals and conservatives that Roald feared for the future unity of the realm if he picked favorites or identified with a faction. He had to appear impartial and above the fray at all costs and at all moments no matter how it tore his conscience when he wanted to stand more staunchly beside his friends but friendship for a prince was more an indulgence than a duty. 

He still did not know why Alan was sharing this predicament with Lord Imrah but he found out a second later as he went on, “In our history lessons our tutor told my brother and me that before Gareth III made noble families spend half the year at court and began to train pages and squires there, a boy who wished to become a knight would be the page and squire of an older knight who would teach him how to do things. My tutor says there is no law against this, only that most people prefer to send their sons to the court school.” 

Roald thought he could see where Alan was going but his jaw still slackened when he read, “My mother says you are a good and brave man. My father says you are wise. Please, my lord, would you train me to be a knight? I will do whatever you tell me, even if I have to eat bitter greens or muck out pigsties. I am very tidy and I have my own pony and saddle. I hunt with our family’s huntsman, who has seen me bag rabbits and pheasants. I can also fish. I wait for the honor of your reply.” 

As he finished with Alan’s heartfelt appeal, Roald glanced across the desk at his knightmaster’s thoughtful face. Most lords would have laughed or smirked at Alan’s extremely unconventional suggestion that he train as a page anywhere other than the Royal Palace or at Alan’s earnest depiction of bitter greens and pigsties as apparently the worst tortures he could envision, but Roald saw only compassion in Lord Imrah’s pale eyes, and he felt a surge of affection for his kind knightmaster, who did not laugh at children no matter how tempting the opportunity. 

Pulling a quill and parchment toward him to begin penning a reply, Roald asked, “A semi-formal greeting, sir?” 

“That would be fine.” Lord Imrah’s voice was absent and his distant eyes were staring out the window at the Emerald Ocean, which was placid under the early April sky. 

Roald wrote out a semi-formal address and then waited for his knightmaster to dictate the rest of the letter. When the silence lingered too long, he risked—because, after all, Lord Imrah was always encouraging him to pose questions and make comments when they read and answered correspondence like this—venturing, “You’re trying to think of how to let Alan down gently, aren’t you, my lord?” 

That was assuming, of course, that there was a gentle way to dash a boy’s dreams, a notion that would probably spark heated debate at the Royal University. 

“Why would I have to let Alan down gently, Roald?” Lord Imrah’s question made Roald’s forehead furrow until he figured that Lord Imrah was trying to teach him something about articulating his thoughts by forcing him to explain the obvious. 

“Alan can’t be your page, sir.” Roald laid aside his quill and spread his hands as if his statement alone were proof. 

“I wouldn’t go that far.” Lord Imrah steepled his fingers and rested his chin upon them. “The lad is right to point out that there is no law prohibiting him from training with me instead of at the palace under Lord Wyldon.” 

“It’s not against the law, but it is against custom, my lord.” Roald wondered if it was Lord Wyldon’s strict training that made him sound like a stick-in-the-swamp. “Custom doesn’t carry the force of law, but failing to follow it can make you as much of an outcast as breaking the law.”

“As Alan argues, it is in some ways a more traditional path he wishes to tread by becoming my page.” Lord Imrah spoke in harmony with slow strokes of his chin, and Roald had to resist the temptation to gape as he recognized that his knightmaster was honestly musing over Alan’s petition. “There was a time when boys would train as pages to individual knights instead of in a group at the palace.” 

“That’s true.” Roald bit his lip as he debated whether it was appropriate to press his case further, but then, remembering that Lord Imrah often told him to speak his mind without fear, he took the plunge. “With all due respect, it was also once commonplace to build motte-and-bailey castles but they’ve been abandoned in favor of more effective fortresses.”

“How touching it is to be compared to a motte-and-bailey castle.” Lord Imrah snorted. “Do you imagine me as the wooden keep or the raised earthwork?” 

“I meant no disrespect.” Roald’s cheeks flamed as he realized that his comparison might have sounded more insolent than he intended. “I just worry that Alan will find himself an outsider if he makes the choice to train with you as a page, my lord.” 

“Alan already seems to feel a pariah,” Lord Imrah reminded him. “That’s why he wants to train here rather than at the palace, where he believes he’ll be an outsider.” 

“When my friend Keladry of Mindelan began training as a page, nobody would talk to her except Nealan of Queenscove and me, sir.” Roald thought that Kel’s story was persuasive evidence that anyone could survive and flourish in the hostile world of the pages’ wing if that person possessed enough resilience. “By the end of her first year, she had an entire circle of friends who would stick up for her and who cared about her. The pages’ wing is where everyone builds those alliances they’ll need in the future.” 

That was something Roald had grasped way back in his first year as a page, and that was why he had sat with a different group of pages every dinner, because he had to forge connections with everybody, including those like Joren he disliked on a personal level. 

“Alan may not be interested in building alliances.” Lord Imrah shook his head. “He seems to be primarily concerned with avoiding ridicule.” 

“Being your page won’t help him avoid ridicule, my lord.” Roald did not know what god of mischief had seized his tongue. “The vultures at court will feast on him and his family if they hear he’s serving as your page. The King of Thieves couldn’t steal enough money for his son to train at the palace like everyone else, that’s what they’ll whisper and laugh about behind their hands.” 

“Roald!” Lord Imrah’s annunciation of his name was as sharp as a dagger to the chest. 

“Sir, I beg your pardon.” Roald’s eyes longed to sink to the desk even as his chin lifted at the injustice of being reproached for saying what half the court would, “You do know that’s what everybody will say, though.” 

“Yes, I know cursed well what every gossip from here to Scanra will say, but that doesn’t mean I want to hear it from my squire in such brutal detail.” Lord Imrah’s eyes were storm-tossed seas and Roald couldn’t remember a time when his knightmaster had taken such a severe tone with him. “The fact that everyone will be saying such spiteful things also doesn’t grant you permission to do the same. Just because everybody else is saying or doing something doesn’t make it right.” 

Roald should have ducked his head and apologized—that’s what a good squire would have done—but instead he found his gaze locking with his knigtmaster’s stern one as he explained, trying to make the man understand his perspective, “I’m not saying what I think is right, my lord. Just what I think is real because Alan lives in the real world and will face real consequences if he doesn’t train in the traditional way.” 

“Keep arguing with me, Roald, and you’ll be facing some real consequences for yourself,” snapped Lord Imrah, slamming his fist against the desk. The slap of flesh against unyielding wood made Roald flinch, because he had never seen Lord Imrah this angry and certainly never pictured this fury directed against him. 

“Please forgive me, sir,” said Roald softly, lowering his head at last. “I am only concerned about the politics of what Alan wants to do.” 

“The boy is ten.” Lord Imrah pinched the bridge of his hawk nose. “He doesn’t want to deal with politics. That’s why he asked to train with me.” 

“I understand that you want to protect him, my lord, but politics can’t be escaped.” Roald tried to state as tactfully as possible a truth that had been as clear as water to him ever since he took his first tentative steps in the nursery. 

“Politics are inescapable for you as Crown Prince, but for Alan the same isn’t necessarily true.” Lord Imrah massaged his temples as if to ward off a headache. “He could easily end up living as a country noble away from court or as a knight forever fighting on one of our borders. Both of those futures would be relatively free of political quagmires.” 

“I hadn’t considered that.” Roald was quiet as he ruminated over this. Then he picked up his quill and asked in a subdued voice, “What do you wish me to write to Alan, sir?” 

“Don’t trouble yourself with that.” Lord Imrah slid the quill out from between Roald’s fingers. “I have to figure out what I want to say, so I’ll send the letter later. Besides, I don’t want you writing something your conscience disagrees with, squire.” 

“My conscience doesn’t disagree.” Roald thought it was more his common sense that was at odds with Alan serving as Lord Imrah’s page. Not wanting his knightmaster to think him a loathsome bully, he murmured, “If Alan does come here, my lord, I promise not to argue with your decision, and you have my word that I won’t be mean to him in any way.” 

“Good.” Lord Imrah tapped Roald’s wrist with the quill. “I’d hate to have a bully for a squire.”


End file.
